BOTM POLL: TWENTY TWENTY

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The Jungle by Upton Sinclair	12	22.64%
Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde	8	15.09%
You Can't Win by Jack Black	5	9.43%
Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić	10	18.87%
King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild	8	15.09%
October by China Mieville	10	18.87%
Total:	27 votes

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Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

You can vote for more than one book, but please only vote for books you'd actually consider posting about if they got selected. If you have another suggestion, list it in a comment with a note explaining why it's a better pick.

1) The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

quote:

The Jungle is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair (1878�1968).[1] Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. His primary purpose in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States.[2] However, most readers were more concerned with several passages exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry during the early 20th century, which greatly contributed to a public outcry which led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act. Sinclair famously said of the public reaction, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach."

The book depicts working-class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. These elements are contrasted with the deeply rooted corruption of people in power. A review by the writer Jack London called it "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery."[3]

2) Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde

quote:

The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol (/ˈredɪŋ dʒeɪl/) on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of homosexual offences in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, on Tuesday, 7 July 1896, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife, Laura Ellen,[1] earlier that year at Clewer, near Windsor. He was aged 30 when executed.[2][3]

3) You Can't Win by Jack Black

quote:

You Can't Win is an autobiography by burglar and hobo Jack Black, written in the early to mid-1920s and first published in 1926. It describes Black's life on the road, in prison and his various criminal capers in the American and Canadian west from the late 1880s to early 20th century. The book was a major influence upon William S. Burroughs and other Beat writers. It was made into a film in 2015. .. .
My background is crowded with robberies, burglaries, and thefts too numerous to recall. All manner of crimes against property. Arrests, trials, acquittals, convictions, escapes. Penitentiaries! I see in the background four of them. County jails, workhouses, city prisons, Mounted Police barracks, dungeons, solitary confinement, bread and water, hanging up, brutal floggings, and the murderous straitjacket. I see hop joints, wine dumps, thieves' resorts, and beggars' hangouts. Crime followed by swift retribution in one form or another. I had very few glasses of wine as I traveled this route. I rarely saw a woman smile and seldom heard a song. In those twenty-five years I took all these things, and I am going to write about them. And I am going to write about them as I took them - with a smile.

4) Dictionary of the Khazars

quote:

Dictionary of the Khazars: A Lexicon Novel (Serbian Cyrillic: Хазарски речник, Hazarski rečnik‎) is the first novel by Serbian writer Milorad Pavić, published in 1984. Originally written in Serbian, the novel has been translated into many languages. It was first published in English by Knopf, New York in 1988.[1]

There is no easily discerned plot in the conventional sense, but the central question of the book (the mass religious conversion of the Khazar people) is based on a historical event generally dated to the last decades of the 8th century or the early 9th century when the Khazar royalty and nobility converted to Judaism, and part of the general population followed.[2]

However, most of the characters and events described in the novel are entirely fictional, as is the culture ascribed to the Khazars in the book, which bears little resemblance to any literary or archeological evidence.

The novel takes the form of three cross-referenced mini-encyclopedias, sometimes contradicting each other, each compiled from the sources of one of the major Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism).

5) King Leopold's Ghost

quote:

King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998) is a best-selling popular history book by Adam Hochschild that explores the exploitation of the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium between 1885 and 1908, as well as the large-scale atrocities committed during that period.[1] The book succeeded in increasing public awareness of these Belgian colonial crimes.[2]

he title is adopted from the 1914 poem "The Congo", by Illinois poet Vachel Lindsay. Condemning Leopold's actions, Lindsay wrote:

Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost,
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell,
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.

6) October by China Mieville

quote:

In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later, it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?

This is the story of the extraordinary months between those upheavals, in February and October, of the forces and individuals who made 1917 so epochal a year, of their intrigues, negotiations, conflicts and catastrophes. From familiar names like Lenin and Trotsky to their opponents Kornilov and Kerensky; from the byzantine squabbles of urban activists to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire; from the revolutionary railroad Sublime to the ciphers and static of coup by telegram; from grand sweep to forgotten detail.

# ? Dec 31, 2019 01:35

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 10:57

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Some last minute challengers, let me know if y'all are interested:

quote:

On January 1, 2020, works from 1924 will enter the US public domain,1 where they will be free for all to use and build upon, without permission or fee. These works include George Gershwin�s Rhapsody in Blue, silent films by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and books such as Thomas Mann�s The Magic Mountain, E. M. Forster�s A Passage to India, and A. A. Milne�s When We Were Very Young. These works were supposed to go into the public domain in 2000, after being copyrighted for 75 years. But before this could happen, Congress hit a 20-year pause button and extended their copyright term to 95 years.2

Now the wait is over.

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not� (the first volume of his "Parade's End" tetralogy)
Eugene O�Neill, Desire Under the Elms
Edith Wharton, Old New York (four novellas)
Yevgeny Zamyatin, We (the English translation by Gregory Zilboorg)
A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young
Hugh Lofting, Doctor Dolittle�s Circus
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Ant Men
Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit
Lord Dunsany (Edward Plunkett), The King of Elfland�s Daughter

# ? Dec 31, 2019 18:01

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

A Passage to India was adapted into one of those Merchant and Ivory costume movies from the 80s yes?

Not saying I want to read it, just refreshing my memory

# ? Dec 31, 2019 22:17

Selachian: Oct 9, 2012

Bilirubin posted:

A Passage to India was adapted into one of those Merchant and Ivory costume movies from the 80s yes?

Not saying I want to read it, just refreshing my memory

It was made into a movie, but not by Merchant Ivory (although they adapted a bunch of E. M. Forster's other stuff).

Speaking of movie adaptations, I've had an omnibus edition of "Parade's End" sitting around forever -- I picked it up sometime after seeing the Stoppard/Cumberbatch adaptation but never actually cracked it.

# ? Jan 1, 2020 22:02

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

New year, I have a goal to participate in a monthly thread and I love historicals, both fiction and non fiction. So October sounds interesting, especially with Mike Duncan working through the Russian Revolution.

Edit: I also wouldn't mind rereading The Jungle, especially since I'm much more politically aware and colder on capitalism, so the intended main theme should be more important to me this time.

Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jan 2, 2020

# ? Jan 2, 2020 17:13

Hieronymous Alloy: Jan 30, 2009; Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!; Morbid Hound

Ok, we'll do The Jungle. I'll get a thread up soonish.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 22:01

ThePopeOfFun: Feb 15, 2010

drat I missed this. 1, 2, and 3 seem amazing. Probably going to read them.

# ? Jan 4, 2020 23:02

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# ? Apr 25, 2024 10:57

Jack B Nimble: Dec 25, 2007; Soiled Meat

If I recall correctly, then-president Theodore Roosevelt read The Jungle and was so disturbed he sent someone in to work undercover at meat packing plant for a couple weeks and report back. When the man returned Roosevelt asked "Well, is it as as bad as the book says?", to which the agent replied "no, Mr. President, it's worse".

# ? Jan 5, 2020 02:12

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